by Australian Bureau of Statistics

Report

Year

2012

City

Canberra

Institution

Australian Bureau of Statistics

Date

21 June 2012

Report number

ABS Catalogue no. 2075.0

Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet abstract

The Census conducted in August 2011 aimed to provide information about the Australian populations characteristics and housing; within small geographic areas, to support planning, administration, policy development, and evaluation activities in the public and private sectors.

In the 2011 Census, 548,370 people identified as being of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander origin. Of these, 90% were of Aboriginal origin only, 6% were of Torres Strait Islander origin only and 4% identified as being of both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander origin.

In the Northern Territory, just under 27% of the population identified were counted as being of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander origin. In all other jurisdictions, 4% or less of the population were of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander origin. Victoria has the lowest proportion at 0.7% of the state total.

Over half (53%) of the people who identified as being of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander origin lived in nine of the 57 Indigenous Regions. The three largest regions were located on the eastern seaboard: Brisbane (53,271), NSW Central and North Coast (52,319) and Sydney - Wollongong (52,171). These three regions accounted for 29% (157,761 of 548,370) of the total Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander count.

With the exception of Fitzroy River in Western Australia, the ten Indigenous Areas with the highest proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were in the Northern Territory and Queensland. The Indigenous Area of Laynhapuy - Gumatj Homelands in eastern Arnhem Land had the highest proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples (98%), followed by the Indigenous Areas of Cherbourg and Yarrabah (both 97%), two discrete communities in Queensland.

A second release of Census data on 19 July 2012 will contain data cubes for the Indigenous geography.